Wireless networks, such as long term evolution (LTE) networks, generally include a Policy Charging and Rule Function (PCRF), which is responsible for policy-making and control decisions. The PCRF may dynamically determine policy rules for data flows on the network, such as, for example, Quality of Service (QoS) and billing parameters for the flows. These rules may be communicated to a gateway, such as a Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW), which may enforce the rules on the data flows. For example, if a piece of user equipment (UE) is attempting to establish a connection to a particular Packet Data Network (PDN)—suppose for a voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) call—then the PCRF may generate rules for the QoS for the connection and pass those rules on to the PGW for enforcement. The PCRF may create one or more sessions for each of the UEs connected to the network in order to manage data flows in real time.
The PCRF may include numerous Multi-Media Processing Engines (MPEs), which create and manage the sessions. When a request for a new session is received by the PCRF, the MPE that will handle the session may be selected by a Multi-Protocol Routing Agent (MRA) included in the PCRF. The MRA may distribute the PCRF session load across the multiple MPEs, and may route messages received from the gateway or other sources (such as, for example, an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)) to the appropriate MPE. Once a session is established, the MRA may continue to receive messages corresponding to the session and route the messages to the appropriate MPE handling the session.
In selecting MPEs to handle sessions and in routing the various messages to the appropriate MPEs, the MRA may generate various messages and perform various processing operations. Moreover, when the PCRF is in a geo-redundant configuration, the number of these messages and processing operations may increase. These messages and processing operations may create a substantial processing load for the MRA and other network components.